about what size ball of clay do you for rebuilding a deer earbutt
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Bill, that's really a tough question. I have mitts for hands and some of our smaller framed peers have less, so if I say a ball that will fit your hand, I'm speaking about my hand. Certainly smaller than a baseball and a little larger than a hand ball. That's about as close as I can get to what I use.
How much muscle and cartilage did you remove from the ear when you cleaned it? That is how much you replace. Keep in mind, some clays shrink more than others, so adjust for that.
Recomends about the size of a golf ball, I've never been able to do it with that amount, so I'd say about 1/3 larger than a golf ball. I use the pink Buckeye earlines. Our northern deer are large and heavy haired, so I might be able to get away with being less exact, hair covers a lot.
I guess it also depends on the type of earliner you're using. If Joe Meder was using a liner with a preformed ear butt, then I could see getting away with a golf ball size. If he were using the Eppley buttless, ain't happening. In my case, I use the Eppley WITH butts but I cut them off and make my own so I can move the ear in any direction I feel I or my customer wants.
He was using the Eppley buttless, same as the ones I use! He did it, I SAW him do it! But it still doesn't work for me either. I'm swithching to the new Eppley buttless liners, the ones without all the veins and the pivit ball on the end. I suspect that they will take the same amount of clay to set up. I tried to weigh the amounts once to see if I could make it a uniform process, but there are too many variables for that to be of much use. I watched Yox do his deer seminar, his method was to add until he got it the way he liked it. Do what you gotta do to get it to look the way you think it should.
ear butt muscles are going to also vary in size with the age of the deer and the size of it's head.
Every few degrees of movement is also going to change the shape of the butt due to flexions and relaxations of all the various muscle groups involved.
You WILL need lots and lots of reference if you are going to get serious in making good butts. Here are some I would suggest, and there may be more that someone else could add too.
WASCO has an ears forward and an ears back reference cast in foam. Not the highest detail, but very accurate, and they are inexpensive. WASCO also has Rick Carter buttless earliners. If you are in an area where your deer have smaller ears, like the south, you're pretty well set to go. If your deer have larger ears, say up to the industry standard of what would be called "medium", the edges can be built up with Apoxie-Sculpt to get size. A really strong point of these liners is that the auricular canal, the ear tube, DOES NOT kick out. If you are wanting to really crank ears back, you will need that feature to keep from getting huge, ugly butts.
Cary Cochran made a reference cast when working for Buckeye Mannikins, I'm pretty sure it is still available from McKenzie.
You will not be able to get enough reference photos. The Whitetail Designer Systems Master's Series Short Haired WT Buck Ear Muscle Studies has 16 photos on it.
Regardless of what reference you use, and what earliners, get yourself a block of Roma Plastilina modeling clay. Get the number one soft. You can use this stuff over and over again.
Practice making your butts on the form until you get it down. You can then either pull your sculpted butt off and use it for a model, even saving it for later use, or roll it up into a ball and then roll out a ball of clay of same size for making your final ear butts.
The same modeling clay can be used for practicing setting eyes and making eye lids. I use Apoxie Sculpt for setting eyes and eye lids. By making matching size balls of clay and Apoxie Sculpt, symmetry is much easier to control.
Thanks everyone for you responce
Just buy a set of earliners with butts. Then keep them as a reference. Those references sold through WASCO are crap. I bought the elk one and it was a waste of money. Coombs sells a good 3d cast from Galen Krier (sp?) that is worth the cash for an ears back reference.